May 1988, Part Five

After learning of my dad's death I went on nine year old autopilot. I remember very little of that time and not much about the following year in general. I do recall being in a shoe store trying on shiny black dress shoes. Shoes I would be wearing to my father's funeral. I just could not believe that was all real. Normally I would have been excited to own such shiny new dress shoes but I all I could do was sit and stare at the pretty shoes while my mom helped Heather try on her pair.

I only remember a few things about my dad's wake. We (Heather, Jessica, and I ) played tag in the funeral home after most everyone had left. I recall running past my dad's grey casket. I was laughing but I was sad on the inside. Isn't that amazing? I still can't make any sense of it but I was just a kid and didn't know what I was supposed to do anyway. I had probably been sitting for hours by that point. My most poignant memory from the wake is seeing my dad's best friend, Pee-Wee on his knees in front of the casket, sobbing his eyes out.

The following day was the funeral. We got to ride in a limo. I thought that was pretty cool. What I did not think was cool was that I was not allowed to ride with my mother. Everywhere I went people told me to "Stop bothering your mother." Literally. I probably heard that phrase fifty times over that week. I couldn't get within ten feet of her without someone deflecting me. I know that our family was trying to help my mom but what an awful thing to do to two grieving little girls: tell them they can't be near their mother. Who else is going to be able to help them make sense of all of this? My memories of my father's funeral are full of instances of me trying to be close to my mom and my extended family pushing me away.

My sister and I rode with our grandparents, my mother's parents. Mom and other family members rode in another limo. We pulled up to the cemetery and stepped out of the limousines. I could not believe how many people were there. We were ushered through the nearly silent crowd and seated under a little green tent in front of my dad's casket which was heaped with flowers. I have no memory of what the minister, Frank Mullins (a dear friend of my parents--the missionary who lead my parents to The Lord), said during the ceremony. I just kept staring at that grey box and trying to picture my dad lying in there in a blue suit. I just sat there, with no desire to move or talk or think. At least I was sitting by my mom though.

I think this is where I"ll stop. I don't remember a lot after this point anyway.

I love and miss both my parents. Still having a hard time believing that they are both gone. They had their issues for sure but I loved them both very much. It pains me that my dad has missed so much. He never got the chance to know my brother Matthew. Dad had become a grandfather just two months before his death and he never even got to see his grandchild. Now, there are sixteen grandchildren.

That one event completely changed the course of everyone in my immediate family's lives. That is a positive thing for me but it might not be for the other members of my family; I can only speak for myself and offer a pitiful but whole hearted thank you to God (He has been so good to me and I do not deserve a bit of it). We all had a hard time adjusting after Dad's death but some of us had a more difficult time. Looking back I can see the twisty path that led me here. If the accident hadn't happened we would not have eventually moved back to our old house; I wouldn't have gone to a Christian school where I first realized my need for Jesus; our family would not have been split up and scattered just five years after the accident; I wouldn't have ended up in Texas at 16 years old really wondering "WHAT NOW?"; I wouldn't have met Jason four months after landing in the Lonestar State; and so on. There were some major redemptive life themes waiting for me.

But I did not know any of this in May, 1988.